Family Center at PGH provides comprehensive care for pregnant addicts, their husbands and infants and includes obstetrical, psychosocial, addictive and pediatric care. The program has studied the influence of such comprehensive care on the morbidity and mortality of the pregnant addict and her infant as well as methods for the management of neonatal abstinence and evaluation of the long term outcome of the infant by periodic neurological, developmental and psychological tests. Case finding and long term follow-up are implemented through community workers so that important questions about long term effects of maternal drug abuse in pregnancy can be answered. An "out-reach" mechanism through public health nurses provides a method by which patients are encouraged to attend prenatal clinic, educated about pregnancy, childbirth and child care and counseled in general health care to include venereal disease control. The incidence of obstetrical complications and severe neonatal abstinence can be decreased in pregnant addicts who are provided comprehensive care. Overall neonatal outcome is improved in infants born to women provided adequate prenatal care and addictive care including low dose methadone maintenance. A neonatal abstinence score has been devised to more accurately assess and treat the infant undergoing abstinence and is an improvement over more subjective clinical methods, decreasing the need for treatment and reducing hospital stay in those infants who have been scored. Neurophysiological and psychophysiological tests are in progress to include evaluation of: the oxy-hemoglobin equilibrium curve and red cell 2, 3 diphosphoglycerate, sucking behavior, Brazelton Infant Assessment, pulmonary function, and sleep patterns in infants undergoing narcotic abstinence. Preliminary data on the long term effects of prenatal drug abuse upon infants born to methadone-dependent mothers in comparison to the controls reveal that they are shorter in height and lighter in weight than the control infants. Neurological and pediatric examinations and developmental assessment by Gesell's schedule have revealed no statistical difference between infants of methadone-dependent mothers and control patients.